Selby and Friends

[Agnes Selby]

Please go to www.selbyandfriends.com.au
to view the 2013 season. We look forward to it with excitement.

Regards,
Ages.

[Lance]

Loved the idea of the 20 Questions! Continued success to Selby & Friends!

—Lance

[Agnes Selby]

Thank you, dear Lance.

Regards,
Agnes.

[lennygoran]

Please go to http://www.selbyandfriends.com.au
to view the 2013 season. We look forward to it with excitement.

Regards,
Ages.

Agnes I had no idea there was such a group--do they ever travel outside of Australia--you must be so proud!

"Selby & Friends presents subscription seasons in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Turramurra and Bowral. Beginning in 2007, the series was created by Australian pianist, Kathryn Selby with a special emphasis on chamber music. Her guests have included many of the finest ensemble performers from Australia and around the world. Her popular Sydney series, 'A Little Lunch Music' of which she is Artistic Director, was created in 2008 in association with City Recital Hall Angel Place and occurs once per month."

Regards, Len

[maestrob]

Agnes:

Continued good luck to "Kathryn & Friends" in the new season! I know how trying it is to put together a concert tour, and wish the best to Selby & Friends in all their endeavors.

[Agnes Selby]

Thank you both, Lenny and Maestro. Kathy is a very busy lady.
She acquired a taste for chamber music at Curtis and Malboro
and formed a chamber group with the De Pasquale brothers, then first
chairs of the Phily Orchestra in the 1980s. She loves it! No amount
of work seems enough. On top of it all she is a mother and wife.
She does not travel outside Australia because of family obligations.

Regards,
Agnes.

[lennygoran]

De Pasquale brothers

Agnes any connection to don pasquale and donizetti-some of
My favorites! Len

[Agnes Selby]

No Lenny, but living as you do in New Jersey, you
must have heard the great playing of the de Pasquales
in the Philadelphia Orchestra. I can still hear in my "mind's ear"
Joe de Pasquale's beatiful tone...

Regards,
Agnes.

[Agnes Selby]

...also, I would like to add, Lenny, that my favourite de Pasquale,
William de Pasquale, the first chair of the Phily orchestra
died in April this year. We were all really sorry to hear such sad news.

[lennygoran]

No Lenny, but living as you do in New Jersey, you
must have heard the great playing of the de Pasquales
in the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Agnes, no, I'm sorry to admit I have never heard him or even heard of him. I have to go even further--the musicians for all the classical music works I know sound good to me--I can't distinquish between a David Oistrakh, Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz--same on conductors. For me it's the work itself that gets the most attention. Regards, Len

[Agnes Selby]

Doesn't work for me, Lenny. Even the most beautiful work can
be ruined by a bad performance.

[Teresa B]

Dear Agnes, thanks for posting Kathy's wonderful site! I am getting ready to listen to the Dvorak op 81 - since I played it all last year, it is now very well known to me, and one of my favorites!

I dearly wish I could be there for some of those fabulous concerts this year!

Love, Teresa

[lennygoran]

Doesn't work for me, Lenny. Even the most beautiful work can
be ruined by a bad performance.

Agnes but what's bad-how does one know? Len

[Tarantella]

Best wishes to Selby and Friends - I'll try and get to one of these concerts as they are close to home!

Lenny you can tell a bad performance by COMPARING it to an excellent one. Also, keyboard playing is easy because of all the wrong notes. But, of course, they must observe the instructions of the score and many do not do this. (See! I've just started a sentence with "But"!!!).

For me, Bernstein's late recording of Tchaikowsky Symphony No. 6 was (uncharacteristically) dreadful - lugubrious and melodramatic. This is but one example of poor performance, but it was not the fault of the musicians in this particular case. Also, I subscribed to "Fanfare" and "Gramophone" magazines for 20 years and they tell you, via reviews, what to listen for in sub-standard performances.

[lennygoran]

Sue thanks-I do not believe I will ever reach that point of
Knowledge interesting is that someone who types for
Fanfare lives here in warren cty nj and does the proofreading
For fanfare! She's in sue's garden club! It's a small world. Len

[Werner]

Thank you, Agnes, for the story about Selby & Friends. I apologize for my slow response to an item that should attract attention on a growingly international forum like CMG.

I think the sttory of S & F and our connection to its leading figure is of interest, and, like too many interesting stories, it had its beginnings in a tragedy.

Too few people today remember the Australian master pianist Bruce Hungerford, who would be more appropriately remembered had he not become the victim of an automobile accident while in the midst of recording the Beethoven piano works, in a cycle that was gathering acclaim as it was published piecemeal.

The loss hit his friends and admirers hard. To keep his art alive, the Bruce Hungerford Memorial Foundation was set up to make an annual award to young pianists who reached the Semi-Finals or Finals in the Young Concert Artists piano auditions, the selection to be made by our own committee which included two members who had worked with both Artur Schnabel and Bruce Hungerford.

As luck would have it, the winner in 1980 - our third year out of twenty-five - was an Australian teenager, Kathryn Selby. In the course of the following weeks we had the opportunity to meet Kathy, who was then a student at Curtis in Philadelphia. And with her were her family, here temporarily from Sydney: her brother Mike, her father Dr. med. Theo, and her mother, author Agnes, whom we have come to know and value. We also had the chance to collaborate in the production of an FM broadcast memorializing Bruce Hungerford produced by Terry Colhoun, then head of the Australian Broadcasting Company's New York office.

While the Selbys were here, we were in occasional touch - a contact we were fortunate to keep after they returned home. It was through Agnes that the contact was maintained, and a friendship developed that we esteem highly.

Of course, we followed Kathy's progress through the various stages of a young artist's progress, marked in Kathy's case by a strong love for chamber music in its various forms. This has involved her with various ensembles including international artists, which has given her national eminence. And as the globe shrinks, I trust more CMGers will be able to witness the art of Selby & Friends.

[Agnes Selby]

Thank you, dear Werner, for bringing back pleasant memories. We did
and do appreciate your friendship extended to us by Charlotte and
yourself when we were so far away from home. Kathy is very thankful to
you for awarding her with a prize created in memory of a great Australian.

Kind regards,
Agnes.

[Ted Quanrud]

What a wonderful season! I only wish it wasn't on the other side of the world. Maybe if I spent less money on CDs, I could go to Australia some day. Best wishes to Selby and Friends!

[Agnes Selby]

Thank you, Teresa and I hope that one you will come and visit us.
We have been planning it for a very long time now.

Love,
Agnes.

[Agnes Selby]

What a wonderful season! I only wish it wasn't on the other side of the world. Maybe if I spent less money on CDs, I could go to Australia some day. Best wishes to Selby and Friends!

I do hope, Ted, that you will be able to continue spending money on CDs and
come to Australia as well.

Regards,
Agnes.

[John F]

Doesn't work for me, Lenny. Even the most beautiful work can be ruined by a bad performance.

Agnes but what's bad-how does one know? Len

Maybe Agnes doesn't want to touch that one, but I'll have a go.

Going back to your earlier comment: "the musicians for all the classical music works I know sound good to me--I can't distinquish between a David Oistrakh, Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz--same on conductors. For me it's the work itself that gets the most attention." The three violinists you name were all great musicians, and I doubt that any of them ever gave a really bad performance, certainly not on records. In the Beethoven concerto, for instance, they were all playing the same notes at roughly the same speed, on pitch and without any obvious wrong notes - that is, with good technique. Each had his own distinctive sound and style of playing, and a well-informed listener with a good ear should be able to tell them apart "blind." But many who love music and go to plenty of concerts, couldn't really tell the difference.

Beyond the basics (being consistently on pitch, not playing or singing a lot of obviously wrong notes), which anybody who's paying attention and not tone deaf can hear, telling the difference between a good performance and a bad one is a matter of knowing the music being performed and knowing about music generally. The composer not only writes down the notes to be played or sung but instructions how to do it, such as the speed or "tempo," and if the performer ignores or departs from the instructions - by playing or singing a fast ("allegro") piece slowly, or a slow piece too fast - that can completely change the effect of the music and "ruin" it. Bad performance.

Agnes is a knowledgeable and experienced listener, of course, and can tell if a performance is doing right by the music. Others may just be happy to hear the music (more or less what you said) and don't know whether a performance without many obvious technical flaws is doing it justice. That makes things simpler and probably increases their enjoyment, and Agnes hasn't said it's wrong - only that it doesn't work for her.

[lennygoran]

Maybe Agnes doesn't want to touch that one, but I'll have a go....
But many who love music and go to plenty of concerts, couldn't really tell the difference....
Agnes is a knowledgeable and experienced listener, of course, and can tell if a performance is doing right by the music. Others may just be happy to hear the music (more or less what you said) and don't know whether a performance without many obvious technical flaws is doing it justice. That makes things simpler and probably increases their enjoyment, and Agnes hasn't said it's wrong - only that it doesn't work for her.

Thanks for this explanation--in these 3 parts of your message I believe you've described where I am perfectly--I have gotten tremendous enjoyment from lots of the classical music I've heard but will never have the technical knowledge many in the forum have. Regards, Len

[John F]

It doesn't have to be about technical knowledge. Familiarity with good performances can help you learn the music, which in turn may help you decide whether the next performance you hear is also good or maybe not - if that matters to you. That's how I learned much of the music I know, rather than from reading the scores and using them to assess a performance from scratch. Along the way I have picked up some scores of the music that matters most to me, maybe 100 or so, and many scores are available for free on the Web. But the listening and usually the learning came first.

Professional musicians are supposed to learn the music from the score and develop their performances accordingly. But you know what? Sometimes they learn the music by ear, and some - almost always singers - can't even read music, and depend on other musicians or recordings to play it for them. How they do what they do is their business, and a performance based on listening to good models can be very good, while one that's been worked up from the score can be terrible - cf. Glenn Gould's Mozart sonatas. But this is about professionals, not amateur listeners like you and me.

How to know which performances are good enough to learn from? That's where record reviews come in, and the recommendations of CMG members.

[lennygoran]

Along the way I have picked up some scores of the music that matters most to me, maybe 100 or so, and many scores are available for free on the Web. But the listening and usually the learning came first.

This got me thinking--somehow I didn't get into the 2 Chopin piano concertos until about 5 years ago--what super works they are imo--I guess for me a score would be useless but I see they are available! Regards, Len

[John F]

You could keep in mind that the composer and the performers never meant us in the audience to have the musical scores, just to listen to the music. For those who can read music, or at least follow it with a score, that can be interesting and even fascinating, but it's an extra. Music is for your ears, not your eyes.

(And then there's opera...)

[lennygoran]

Music is for your ears, not your eyes.

(And then there's opera...)

Great--my hearing aids will be ready Sept 20! Regards, Len